From the Ground Up: Local Belize Communities Drive Scalable Organic Waste Solutions

In News
Belize Waste Management

From the Ground Up: Local Belize Communities Drive Scalable Organic Waste Solutions

By: Maria Paula Viscardo Sesma | CCAP Research Analyst

Key Takeaways:

  • Recycle Organics’ Network & Education Program has become the engine for local change: The key enabler for implementing community-wide organic waste management measures wasn’t just funding or technology — it was creating a monthly peer-learning platform where municipalities shared experiences, connected with national institutions and linked up with private sector actors. This collective learning infrastructure is what turned isolated challenges into shared, actionable solutions.

  • Organic Waste Management (OWM) Plans are bridging local vision with holistic implementation: The four OWM Plans weren’t generic templates — they were tailored to each municipality’s operational reality. This allowed each city to pinpoint its own bottlenecks (transport costs, enforcement gaps, financing shortfalls, etc.) and prioritize concrete, feasible measures. Planning rooted in local context is what unlocked action on the ground.

  • The most effective solutions combine technical, economic and community-driven approaches: No municipality moved forward with a single lever. Orange Walk paired a public-private composting partnership with a new service fee and household bagging rules. Belmopan combined youth-led composting projects with traffic warden enforcement training. This multi-dimensional approach — technical, financial and social — is what sets this program apart and makes it replicable.

Three years ago, all nine municipalities across Belize reached a turning point: enough was enough when it came to poor waste management. Illegal dumping and burning, limited awareness regarding methane emissions from final disposal and capacity gaps had long held back progress, despite the clear opportunity to turn nearly half of the country’s waste stream into valuable resources with the right tools and knowledge to sustainably manage organic waste.

 
 That’s what the Recycle Organics team—led by the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) and ImplementaSur—uncovered during a baseline study in 2023. Today, momentum is building. Municipalities across the country are taking action—collaborating to develop community-wide waste management plans that transform a persistent challenge into a meaningful opportunity, while advancing Belize’s commitment to cut methane emissions by 30% by the end of the decade.
 
Over the past two years, the bulk of this capacity-building took form through RO Belize’s Network and Education Program that met monthly to discuss and create a structure for collective empowerment around crucial sustainable waste management topics like valorizing organics. Specifically, separating waste at the source creates opportunities to transform organic material into nutrient-rich compost or renewable energy (biogas) that make communities more independent, resilient and self-sufficient—while lowering emissions and reducing reliance on costly imported fertilizers and fossil fuels.

“The Belize Network [and Educational Program] provided a valuable space for exchanging ideas and learning from on-the-ground experiences among municipal staff who would otherwise be unlikely to come together. It was a great opportunity to close gaps, connect through shared experience and grow together, especially as councils are currently facing similar challenges.”
Alejandra Pedraza Luengas
Local Policy Consultant: Recycle Organics Program

The Educational Network fostered a shared learning platform where cities and towns exchanged common sector-related experiences and explored technical solutions to overcome challenges. It also directly connected local municipal leaders with national institutions (such as the Belize Tourism Board or Belize Solid Waste Management Authority) and private sector actors, such as those working in key sectors like hospitality or directly with sustainable organic waste management operations.

Through the RO Program, Benque Viejo also received a woodchipper to process brown waste, enabling the municipality to begin composting organic materials in windrows to be used in its community garden.

As a result of this process, four municipalities — Orange Walk, Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belmopan (Belize’s capitol), and Dangriga — developed Organic Waste Management (OWM) Plans tailored to their local contexts. The plans were completed in November 2025 and validated through both internal municipal processes and consultations with local communities, ensuring that the proposed actions reflected operational realities and local priorities.

Since then, municipalities have been advancing concrete measures aligned with the priorities identified in their plans. 

Read Maria Paula’s full blog on CCAP.org, and discover how planning is already taking shape into action on the ground in each of these muncipalities.

To learn more about the Recycle Organics Program or explore partnership opportunities, please reach out to us here.